We were recently on a holiday/fishing trip in Cancun Mexico. We had a goal to catch some nice fish and we did. I caught my first ever Sailfish. Once we got back to the docs we were aproached by a representative from International Taxidermy. He convinced us that the only way to keep the memory alive is to have it mounted as a trophy. We were told that the the actual fish or parts of it was going to be used and incorporated into the mount. We asked them if that was ok as we did not want it to be damaged since it was going to be shipped to our home in Colorado. They said that the fish will be fine and that after about a month we will receive our mounted fish. We trusted them with the info they provided and we placed our order.
Well after about five weeks our "fish" was delivered. The first shock was when we opend the box. The Smell!!!! Wow!!, it smelled like a rotten fish. I guess tsome of that can be expected since it is a dead fish per-say. But I thought that chemicals were being used in the process in order to prevent any strong odor buildup. Quickly did we realize that this was not the only problem with our mount. We were extremey dispaointed to find the fish almost unrecognizable. The fish was basically falling apart. The box it was delivered in was perfectly intact so the reason must be that the fish was poorly made. I mean the sail was complelty torn and the bill had also fallen of the fish. The skin was cracking and completly removed from the fish in some parts.
We tried contacting the company but they defaulted to say that it must have been damaged during shipping. They took no responsibility whatso ever.
Once we started to further look into this company and the process of having fish mounted we also found that it is actually illegal to import any billfish to the US!!! The law states that one cannot import a billfish or any real parts of a billfish (which our sailfish would be) into the US. So on top of producing a total faulty product, we may have also broken US law. Well that is something that we were never told about by the International Taxidermy representative. No wehere on their website do they mention this kind of important info to their customers.
I assume that a large portion of their customers are indeed form the USA so it would only be ethical to disclose that at the time of the sale. If we would have known this rather important information. Instead we may have opted to make a fishmount that was a 100% reproduction, without any real parts incorporated.
So please beware of the law and please do not engage in any business with this un ethical company. It was a total waste of our money and we can only hope that by posting this we save others some money and grief.
carolina
hidalgo,#2UPDATE Employee
Thu, June 16, 2016
Hi storm this is carolina,
I read this and I'm so confused about this.
I have like 3 hours looking on my records about you.
so, can you please give your contract number, the tracking number of the package and your telephone number. I really want to talk with you.
my first orders from cancun are on the way to my clients.
But anyway, send me that in formation and then I explain you why the real taxidermy dont smell to anything.
(the people who read this article, please I invited you to find us on facebook and find experiences of our clients and how looks a real taxidermy our send us a email and we can reply the email with more information and send emails about our clients (real clients))
https://www.facebook.com/International-Taxidermy-474438432578829/